Best Dog iPhone Apps
Currently there are a plethora of dog related apps in the App Store. It can be a little overwhelming sorting through the list to pick out the best of the best. In our opinion, the following three iPhone apps stand out in the crowd.
Dog Park Finder
Powered by three years of DogParkUSA.com editorial research, user photos and reviews, the app gives all the information that you need for a quick trip to the dog park, or a vacation across the country.
Pet First Aid
Pet First Aid is loaded with detailed videos and step-by-step illustrations so you’ll know exactly what to do when caring for your pet. Videos include: restraint, muzzling, CPR, bandaging, and many more. All articles, videos, and illustrations are bundled with the application for offline or wilderness access.
THE DOG
Yes, we might be a little biased-but for a very good reason. The iPhone app contains over 450 photos of 92 different breeds from Artlist’s exclusive collection of unique photographs of dogs. Each breed comes with a helpful description and provides an extensive series of ratings covering key ownership facts.
Using SQLite in your WP7 app
There's been a lot of focus on the missing features of the new Windows Phone 7 devices. Which is too bad since there are so many great features. Cut & Paste? Nice to have, but how often do you actually use it? Fortunately, we won't have to wait too long for this or a slew of other features/improvements which Microsoft says will be arriving early 2011.
From a developer's perspective, there are many other missing features that may not be obvious or even important from a consumer perspective. Fortunately, unlike consumers who are stuck waiting for Microsoft to release updates, developers can build their own systems and/or workarounds.
One of the biggest surprises to us was the lack of native database support. Luckily there are several developers and teams working to fill this gap. People are approaching it from multiple angles and solutions (isolated storage based tables, generic objects floating around in code, etc.). Just do a quick and you'll see what I'm talking about.
Reading through these discussions can be interesting and some of these solutions may fit the device well. But what about those of us that just want to focus on business logic and have a database that just works - and works like we expect? Or maybe you're like us and already have some databases that are being used on other platforms with standard database support and don't want to rewrite or port your solution?
We already had some SQLite databases. SQLite is supported on the iOS and we had hoped to just move those same files into our WP7 versions. Thanks to at least Dan Ciprian Ardelean we can! He provides some samples, but we'll try and expand on those to help you get up and running quickly and easily...
Best Google Analytics Code Location: Header vs. Footer
Where is the best place to put your traditional synchronous version of Google Analytics Code?
Google recommends that you put the code snippet right before the '</body>' tag of each page you are planning to track. Google recommends this location so it doesn't slow the visual loading of the page.
However, you can also locate the tracking code right below the '<body>' tag. By putting it in the header the library will be accessible for any events or virtual pageviews that may need to be implemented for goal processes, ajax events, etc.
The short answer is if you are concerned with page loading times (the 200ms it takes to load the library), you should locate the code at the bottom of the page as Google recommends. However, if you are concerned with getting the most accurate tracking data from Google Analytics, you should locate the code at the top of the page!
WP7 Accent Shapes
The new Windows Phone 7 (WP7) introduces Microsoft's Metro style (Okay, it's not the first Microsoft product to use it but it will probably be the first time many users encounter it). We've gone back and forth on it. It seems most people (by people I mean developer's and tech gurus) are convinced of it's genius.
It is simple and there is a sort of beauty to it when done correctly. However, it will be interesting to see how main stream consumers who are used to the styles introduced through the iOS and Android devices take to it. As developers of multiple platforms we've struggled with it a bit. It seems to fit some Apps remarkably well, but others not at all.
If you have developed apps for other software platforms like iOS it can be tempting to try and port your apps to look and behave as it does on the other platforms. Admittedly this was our first approach and we found it didn't work too well. Ultimately we've come to the conclusion that existing apps were made to match the OS they were created for and the same should be true of the various versions we create.
In other words, if the consumer wanted an iOS style app they would have bought an iOS device. By purchasing a WP7 device the consumer has shown their preference for WP7 styles, which inevitably means Metro.
This isn't always appropriate and should be decided on an App by App basis. WP7 style is also a moving target and we shouldn't hold back on innovation just to match existing patterns. But there should be an evolution to our innovations so that they don't clash with those patterns but rather enhance them.
So now that you are all about Metro, here is at least one technique we use to take advantage of this design pattern...
Multiple Submit buttons in LiquidOffice
LiquidOffice is an enterprise forms processing and workflow suite from Cardiff (Now Autonomy). It does some things very well (like routing forms), but it can be an incredibly frustrating piece of software for developers and designers.
Recently a client wanted to use LiquidOffice (v6.2.1) alongside a web service to provide a list of locations using a zip code and mile radius. The requirements included the ability to return to a previous form and to change the zip code and/or mile radius. Doing something like this in ASP.NET would be very easy and there are a ton of examples out there. Doing this in LiquidOffice, however, presents quite a few challenges:
- The LiquidOffice Web Service task is just awful
- Populating a table from the process isn't straightforward
- By default you can have only one submit button on a form (although there is a list of actions which can have various values)
- Navigating between forms isn't intuitive either
The good news is that we got it working. To try and help others that may be struggling with how to do some of these things we will present our solutions.
Windows Phone 7 “Unspecified error”
We have been working on some Windows Phone 7 (WP7) apps recently and have found some of the errors to be frustrating. The most frustrating are unhandled exceptions that show up only when you run the app. Often the app seems fine in Visual Studio and even Expression Blend but when run the app loads then closes.
When you run the app in debug you find that the Application_UnhandledException event of App.xaml.cs is fired. Hovering over the ApplicationUnhandledExceptionEventArgs e object and drilling down to the exception reveals "Unspecified error":
Unspecified Error in Debugger
You can of course Google this, but WP7 is so new and the error so vague it's often difficult to find the answer or even other people who are dealing with the same issue. If you have advice or specific ways you troubleshoot tricky errors like this one, leave us a comment. For now, I'll tell you how we generally approach these and what caused this specific error.
Google Voice on the iPhone?
I read a very interesting article today on the future of Google Voice and the iPhone. I feel that this could be an allusion to the end of apps as we know it! I don't think apps will be going away anytime soon, however this probably signals a movement to a whole new approach of how apps are rendered and presented on mobile devices.
Google Nexus One
This was on the G4 network several weeks back speculating on the Google Nexus One. I always like watching these types of videos after the phone has been released to see how close the expert's get to their forecast.
Happy Holidays!!
Happy Holidays from WireBear!
The WireBear staff wants to wish everyone a safe and happy holidays! Hopefully, everyone has been nice so Santa will bring them that new iPhone, Droid or iTunes gift card.
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